INVERNESS - Macbeth and the Monster

Monday 16th August 1993 - Day 82

I paid my bill at the restaurant counter and left my bags downstairs while I went out to buy a sandwich. When I returned, Mrs. Ross apologised that she hadn't had much time to chat with me. This was the busiest part of the year so far she said, with a quick turnover of guests usually only staying one night. She hoped that I hadn't minded all the raucous Continentals who were put in the lounge when they were waiting for a table to become free in the restaurant. I didn't bother mentioning the Spanish bunch who completely took over the other night, smoking and squabbling so much I couldn't even hear myself think, let alone manage to listen to the television. Having remembered that I was living in Paris when I wrote to book, Mrs. Ross told me that she is half-French. Her father was a soldier in Brittany during the Second World War and married a local girl. Their house was destroyed by German booby-traps and so they came back to live in Ullapool.

By noon I was down at the pier with a few backpackers who were also waiting around in the sunshine for the bus to Inverness. Once the ferry had disgorged its passengers, there was no hope of any sort of queue being formed. Some looked ready to come to blows to secure a place on one of the two buses that had arrived. When everyone had finally settled down, we set off on the sixty-mile journey through the hills and lochs. I was disappointed to be heading south for the first time in almost a month, particularly when the landscape began to flatten and cultivated fields came into view. The wildness of the Highlands had slipped away.

After some ninety minutes on the road, we entered the outskirts of Inverness. There to greet me at the coach station was Sylvia, a long-standing family friend who, along with her husband Ken, has kindly offered to put me up for as long as I want. Our first stop was the huge Tourist Information Centre to pick up a handful of leaflets, then it was on to the shop where their daughter works and finally Marks and Spencer to stock up on food for my stay here.

Having just passed through on my 1984 trip, I was pleasantly surprised to find that it isn't the grey sprawl I harboured in my memories all these years. With its suspension bridges across the Ness, old buildings and floral displays, it is prettier than I remember. Inverness Castle, now a prison, was built in 1835 and sits on a low cliff overlooking the river by a statue of Flora MacDonald. On the opposite bank is Saint Andrew's Cathedral minus its spires as the funds ran out before they could be completed. The shopping centre is packed with arcades, bookshops and department stores the likes of which I haven't seen since Glasgow.

When I was in Paris, I wondered how I would feel at this point after almost three months on the road. Although I am not tired of travelling, I have become tired of being weighed down by increasingly heavy bags each time I move on. Perhaps using Inverness as a base for further exploration will make things easier.

Tuesday 17th August 1993 - Day 83

This morning's rain put paid to any ideas of going on the Loch Ness cruise which I had planned. In the afternoon, the weather had brightened up enough for me to take the bus into the town centre. Sylvia had recommended the Guide Friday tours which leave the coach station every thirty minutes. One was ready to depart just as I arrived. The driver asked me three times if I was sure I wasn't a student before finally accepting my five-pound note in payment of the full fare. I sat on the open top deck and listened to the recorded commentary which points out all the places of interest in the town including buildings dating back to the seventeenth century.

Two miles out of Inverness we reached the battlefield of Culloden where Bonnie Prince Charlie's men were defeated by the Duke of Cumberland, known forever after as "The Butcher". Just to the north of this windswept heath a road now runs bringing in tourists by the coachload to the Visitor Centre with its audio-visual show, exhibition, restaurant and bookshop. Modern paths lead you through purple heather to flags which mark the positions of the opposing armies as they went into battle. One thousand two hundred Highlanders lost their lives here on the morning of 16th April 1746. Buried in mass graves, they are remembered through stones which bear the names of their clans. On a grey afternoon such as today, it seemed a desolate place, as devoid of hope or life as it would have been then.

Wednesday 18th August 1993 - Day 84

I left Inverness at 10.10am in the pouring rain optimistically armed with a Rover ticket for day-long access to the local network of Tourist Trail buses. After a bumpy twenty-five minute ride which took us past the seventeenth century Castle Stuart with its decorative stone crown, we arrived at Fort George. Built as the Highland garrison fortress for the Hanoverian army of George II following the Battle of Culloden, it stands on a headland overlooking the Black Isle. Today its mile-long rampart encloses a museum and a working garrison spread over an area of some forty-two acres.

Once we had deposited four enthusiastic American tourists, we continued on for a further half an hour to the popular seaside resort of Nairn. In the gloomy conditions, I saw nothing of the beach and limited myself to a short walk by the river. The shops in the high street provided me with little interest after the hustle and bustle of Inverness. With the weather brightening, I was able to eat my lunch on a bench by the war memorial and then headed for the next bus out of there.

By 1.30pm I was at Cawdor Castle with its spurious echoes of Macbeth. Set in wooded grounds, it dates from the early fourteenth century. The old drawbridge now takes tourists into the central square tower from where you can tour the dining room, pink bedroom, tapestry bedroom and drawing room. The latter incorporates a hidden trapdoor used to take any unwelcome visitor straight down a chute carved within the thickness of the castle wall and into a dungeon which has no other means of entry or exit. It was only discovered in 1976 during building work on the room above and has now been partially opened up for viewing. Near there in the very bowels of the castle stands an ancient tree which is reached via a narrow stone stairwell. Legend has it that one day the Thane of Cawdor set a donkey laden with gold to roam the countryside, saying that wherever it chose to rest for the night would become the site of his castle. The donkey lay down by a hawthorn tree and the castle was built around it.

After passing through the old and new kitchens, the tour ends with the larder which houses a peculiar mixture of old cycles and artefacts such as the gardener's snow shoes much to the amusement of three French people who were intent on scrutinising every single item. Fortunately the couple's English was good enough to understand the dry humour of the information panels which they would read out and translate for their companion. They particularly enjoyed the story of old Lady Cawdor's pet goat and also a much cherished chaffinch which was given a better funeral than most of her relatives. In fact throughout the rooms all the written commentaries contained just the right balance of historical detail and entertaining anecdotes, with the occasional friendly call to the reader to persevere and not fall asleep. Finally it was out through the Aladdin's cave of a shop which included interesting displays of yet more leftover oddities, stuffed fish and family trinkets.

Outside, I followed the path around the back of the castle and crossed a bridge over a mountain stream flowing into the River Nairn. Faced with a variety of markers for all the nature trails in the vast expanse of woodland, I opted to return to the walled garden. In the afternoon sunlight, it provided a colourful contrast to the stony backdrop of the castle. Flower beds of reds, oranges, purples and whites vied for attention with the tunnel of roses and Copper beeches.

As the arrival of the next bus for the thirty-minute ride back to Inverness via Culloden Moor was suddenly upon me, I headed back to the gate to find that a piper was leading a special coach party towards the drawbridge. I had a lucky escape. My only regret is not buying a guidebook. I would like to re-read the castle's stories and savour the prose on the displays. For a mere £3.50 entrance fee, it was extremely good value for money and definitely the most interesting castle I've ever visited.

Thursday 19th August 1993 - Day 85

Although it was a grey day, I decided to go on the Grand Loch Ness Coach and Boat Tour which left the town centre at 10.15am. The driver was a cheery soul who insisted that we turned around and said hello to whoever was sitting behind us. Then he asked us all in turn to give our names and say where we came from. Of the twenty or so passengers, I was one of the few Brits onboard, with the others originating mainly from Italy, Austria, Germany and Japan.

Minutes after setting off, we stopped at Pringle's Woollen Mill on the outskirts of Inverness. None of our party were quite sure what to make of the cones of coloured yarn that confronted us in a huge store. Some pretended to be interested whilst I wondered exactly what we were expected to do for the next half an hour. Eventually someone found the exit and we trotted into what was signposted as the "Warp mill". Past potentially lethal machines we ambled as workers scurried around checking threads. Then it was on to high-speed looms with punched cards determining the various patterns. Next we followed the darning, milling, washing, spin drying, brushing and pressing phases before watching smartly dressed ladies carry out a final inspection and sew on the labels.

From here the tour led inevitably to the factory shop where more than one of my companions was tempted to delve into their purse. I made my way back to the coach and waited for the driver to emerge from wherever he was taking his free elevenses. A head count revealed that we were two passengers short. After waiting and waiting until we could stay no longer, the driver said he had no alternative but to leave them behind in the hope of picking them up on the way back at the end of the day. As he started the engine, the two Japanese girls suddenly appeared giggling shyly as they helped each other up the steps. With no explanation offered as to where they had been all this while, we put it down to some sort of linguistic misunderstanding over the departure time.

Once back on the road, we followed the Caledonian Canal towards Loch Dochfour and then came to the northern end of Loch Ness. Twenty-four miles long and a mile wide in places, it reaches a depth of some seven hundred feet. From the moment it came into view, my eyes remained firmly fixed on its choppy grey water just in case any strange creature should break through the surface. Shortly afterwards, we pulled into a lay-by where we could see the ruins of Urquhart Castle which was blown up in 1692 to prevent it becoming a Jacobite stronghold. The driver explained that much to his obvious disgust, Historic Scotland has recently stopped people using their car park unless they intend to visit the castle and pay the entrance fee.

We continued along the busy road as it swung inland to Drumnadrochit, site of two rival Loch Ness monster exhibitions. As our trusty driver left us with almost an hour to kill and firm warnings to the Japanese not to be late, he reassured us that we would obtain a discount on our admission to the "Official" exhibition if we said we were on his coach. Having heard from various sources that it wasn't really much good anyway whatever you paid, I stayed outside to eat my sandwiches. Unfortunately, there was nowhere to sit: the picnic tables being for the sole use of the café patrons, as one poor girl who had either not seen or not understood the large signs soon discovered when she was chased off by a member of staff. I stood by a pool of greenish water looking at the coin-operated Nessie in the middle which moved in a very unmonster-like fashion.

Together with the local hotel, there was a cluster of souvenir shops pandering to the needs of all the tourists who see Scotland purely in terms of petticoat tail shortbread, tinned haggis, monster erasers and tartan hats. I resisted buying my nephews a t-shirt proclaiming "I'm a wee monster" and trundled back to the bus.

As we passed through the actual village of Drumnadrochit further down the valley, I realised that it looked more interesting than the complex where we had just been incarcerated. A pity I wasn't aware of that before. The tree-lined road rejoined the shores of the loch at Urquhart Castle. Here we ran into a long tail-back of vehicles, some queuing for the car park as others slowed to take photos out of their windows only to be waved on by a pair of irate traffic wardens.

Nearby is the John Cobb cairn erected by the local people as a memorial to the famous racing motorist who died in 1952 whilst attempting to break the water speed record on Loch Ness. A few miles to the south at Invermoriston, the road branches off on the way to Skye and we stopped to scramble down to what remains of a bridge built by Thomas Telford in the early nineteenth century. It was a quiet, leafy spot from where we could watch the fast-moving white water of the River Moriston. This, the driver informed us, was our compensation for not being able to go near Urquhart Castle.

At the southern end of Loch Ness sits Fort Augustus. A Benedictine abbey, now used as a boy's school, stands on the site of the old fort which was named after the Duke of Cumberland. The driver told us about one of the monks who used take coach parties on guided tours. Barely four feet tall, he would give his introductory spiel at the gates, then tell the crowd "Please follow me, but try not to trample on the guide".

It is here that the Caledonian Canal takes up its route again on its way down to Fort William and Neptune's Staircase which I saw from the train in July. We, however, were going in the other direction for a ninety-minute cruise up Loch Ness onboard the fifty-four foot long Royal Scot. We were late arriving and the boat was already quite full when we all trooped on. The driver had rung ahead from Drumnadrochit to inform the captain how many of us to expect and we soon filled the remaining seats. We began by heading up the eastern side of the loch and stared up at the steep hillside. Despite a light shower of rain, we all resolutely stayed put in our places like naughty schoolchildren who had been told not to move. Finally a member of the crew came to tell us that they had switched on the thirty-three-inch colour sonar screen below decks and the kids made a dash for the stairs. It was as though we had all been waiting for the order to break ranks. Had he not appeared, I feel we would have sat there determined to get our money's worth and brave out the gusting wind throughout the entire cruise.

At the half-way stage, the boat turned around to sail down the western side of the loch back to Fort Augustus. By then only a few people were left up top to brave the elements, but even they were forced to seek shelter when another shower came down. After watching incomprehensible coloured patterns on the giant sonar screen and having my toes trodden on by people constantly barging past to buy drinks from the bar, I made the mistake of going out for some fresh air. I soon found that it was impossible to get back inside again and had to spend the last twenty minutes in the only accessible spot which was remotely under cover. Trapped by a pushchair belonging to a man who was obviously intent on being the first person off the ship once we reached dry land, I could do little to avoid the spray which kept coming over the stern. I remembered having read that the temperature of the loch always stays just above freezing point and longed for the warmth of the coach.

From Fort Augustus we started on the drive back to Inverness up the eastern shore. Along these B roads were blind summits and bends galore. The driver warned anyone of a nervous disposition to do what he usually did and not look. Incredulous, the young Austrian blonde sitting opposite me clung on to her brother. Even with only elementary German I understood her panic. "What! He's closed his eyes" she shouted as her own nearly popped out of her head.

After a roller coaster ride, we stopped at an excellent viewpoint 385 metres above sea level, but it was too grey and windy to really appreciate the scenery. Further on across the moorland, we passed one of General Wade's old bridges and continued on to Foyers whose waterfall was praised by Burns. This used to be one of the stops on the tour, the driver explained, until a series of nasty accidents made the operator's insurers nervous. He slowed the coach so we could glimpse the gorge through the trees. It looked a very long way down.

Later, with Urquhart Castle on the opposite shore, we stopped to stretch our legs and watched a couple of windsurfers testing the temperature of the loch. Before returning us safely to Inverness, he told us the story of one of his friends who believes he saw the monster, then proceeded to play a Highland jig on his harmonica, getting everyone to tap their feet in time to the music. Thank goodness we didn't have to sing.

Friday 20th August 1993 - Day 86 to Monday 23rd August 1993 - Day 89

Having seen advertisements for a daily coach service to Orkney, I have booked myself into a B+B recommended by one of Ken's amateur radio friends in Kirkwall. I considered going up to Shetland, but given the cost of the onward journey (about £70 for the eight-hour crossing from Orkney) with no guarantee of an improvement in the weather to make it worthwhile, I thought better of it. In a rash fit of exuberance, I even toyed with the idea of carrying on to Iceland, but feel such a trip would need to be thoroughly researched first. After all these months on the road, it's as though I now feel confident enough to go almost anywhere.

..... Go to the next chapter ......

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May 1998